A top shareholder of Nikola Corporation (NKLA) purchased another three million shares of the heavy-duty commercial battery electric vehicle (BEV) maker. As per a regulatory filing, Trevor R. Milton, founder and former CEO of Nikola, bought NKLA stock at $5.8 per piece on August 24. The total consideration paid for the purchase was $17.4 million.
Notably, post the latest purchase, Trevor has 51,047,726 shares of Nikola held by him or his company M&M Residual LLC. Furthermore, the regulatory filing showed that his wife also owns 1,250,000 shares of Nikola as of date.
As per TipRanks Insider Trading Activity, Trevor, who is a more than 10% owner, had last purchased shares of Nikola in September 2020. Post this, he has been consistently selling NKLA stock through a series of both informative and uninformative sell trades. Interestingly, Trevor has a success rate of 75% on NKLA stock, with an average return of 20.39%.
TipRanks’ Insider Trading Activity Tool also provides a comprehensive list of daily insider transactions and shows which top corporate insiders are buying or selling shares of a publicly listed company. Interestingly, TipRanks also includes a list of hot stocks that boast either a Very Positive or Positive insider confidence signal.
Is Nikola a Buy, Sell or Hold?
On TipRanks, NKLA stock has a Hold consensus rating based on four unanimous Holds. This means that analysts are not too confident of the stock’s trajectory. The average Nikola price forecast of $8.25 implies 38.7% upside potential to current levels. Meanwhile, the stock has lost nearly 42% so far this year.
Ending Thoughts
A majority shareholder buying more of a company’s stock always means there is good news ahead for the stock. For Trevor, the signing of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) into a law may have been a driver of optimism for the stock.
NKLA stock is up over 3% in pre-market trading when last checked. Notably, Nikola has plans for enhancing its hydrogen distribution network and is also pilot-testing its hydrogen fuel cell trucks. A Barrons’ report mentioned that companies in the hydrogen fuel segment may be beneficiaries of the IRA, boosting investor confidence.